Crazy Mother-In-Laws

Yeech. That's far, far worse. Some people don't deserve to be parents.

 

I was called ignorant at the dinner table tonight. I swallowed hard; said nothing, remembered everything.

 

My wife's not complaining about my mom today. So today is a good day.

Being her first-born and only son, I, of course, think she is a saint. But I can see how she can be difficult. When my sister was getting married, my mom went around ordering her and my brother-in-law re: wedding plans...until my brother-in-law said "If you're paying for this, you can tell us what to do. If you're not, shut the fuck up."

When my wife and I were in a long distance relationship, my mom would always tell my wife that I was never going to move away from my home area. To me, that was a mother being reluctant to admit her son was all grown up. To my wife, it was my mom refusing to release her claws.

And my wife is disdainful of organized religion while mom is a strident Catholic. When we got our deposit back from our old apartment recently, I called her and said we'd had a Christmas miracle. She said "You're going back to church?" So that can wear on my wife.

But my mom (and dad, but who are we kidding, mom is the shopper) got my wife some very nice, thoughtful gifts this year...and made sure to separate the birthday gifts (her birthday is Christmas Eve) from the Christmas gifts, which means a lot to someone who all too often gets people saying "Here, here's your combined birthday and Christmas gift."

So for today, at least, my wife does not dread coming to my parents house. Small victories, folks. Small victories.

I think it's almost inherently impossible for a woman to feel truly comfortable with her mother-in-law. Mothers will never believe anyone is good enough for their son.

 

My mother thinks my sister-in-law is TOO good for my brother.
Thinks he won the lottery, and not just because she just provided the family's first grandchild and has regained her fabulous va-va voom figure in all of three months

 

change three to four and it could be my mother

 

Is this a good time to mention being a bachelor isn't so bad?

My mother is a wonderful and caring person, but is also a workaholic and possesses almost no sense of humor. I often wonder what The One That Got Away (I guess ... how would I know?) thought of her. If I had to guess, it would have been "not too much."

OTOH, her parents were wonderful, vibrant, warm people who never made me feel like a stranger. Funny enough, we keep in touch via e-mail - both her and her mother - and she's gone on to marry and have a family of her own.

Wow ... that was seriously TMI.

 

My MIF is fine.

She didn't care for me much when her sainted daughter and I were seeing each other in college, but that was a loooong time ago. Besides, I keep her tuned in to Braves news. Piece of cake.

 

I've never disliked any parent and have kept in touch with some long after the end of the road. It's the girlfriend's girlfriends I didn't care for.

 

Yeah, those guys sucked too.

I actually got stoned with an ex-girlfriend's dad about five years ago.

 

Not when she was already a grandmother in her mid-40s, as my MIL was. So I guess there's one advantage of my wife's screwed-up family.